Arakawa Under the Bridge – 03

Comedic gold. Gag comedy is freaken awesome when you have Sugita Tomokazu as Hoshi going insane in a confession room while drilling Riku for the low-down on him and Nino. “I saw Nino leaving your place in the morning two days ago! Have you guys… gone on a date?” You know with Sister sitting there and supposedly being able to see through all lies with 100% accuracy, you’d think Hoshi would start with something farther along in their relationship given the circumstantial evidence, but nope, Hoshi’s an idiot. Watching him try to intimidate Riku with questions and Riku answering honestly with Sister’s confirmations was hilarious when lines like, “I don’t keep track of how many times she sleeps over” and “she only comes over to sleep and leaves in the morning”, brought the jealous star-head to tears as he continued cursing away. The icing on the cake had to be when Riku admitted he hasn’t done anything to Nino, prompting the homo question from Hoshi.

I really don’t think that scene would’ve been as hilarious as it was if Tomokazu wasn’t putting so much attitude behind his performance in all of Hoshi’s mood swings. The man is an absolute riot and watching this episode made me wish he was starring in some Key or Kyoto Animation series again. Having him go head-to-head with Kamiya Hiroshi was money as the two of them are the forefront seiyuus for gag-related comedies in my eyes. I mean, they even went on to talk trash about how many Valentine’s chocolates they receive every year, with Riku stepping up to show off his economic status and popularity with the ladies. Granted, he’s never actually been on a date himself because he deems relationships as a high risk/no return venture, a.k.a. the Devil’s Contract (lol), plus he goes to great lengths to return every single Valentine’s chocolate he receives so he doesn’t incur any debt, but all that made the latter half of this episode better as he tried to invite Nino out on a date. A ride in a super car, dinner with the prime minister, and a helicopter ride with fireworks looks good in his picture book, but this show isn’t about anything going according to Riku’s plans so it was funny to see them all fall through due to Nino’s Venusian mindset.

In retrospect, this is undoubtedly the funniest episode thus far in this series, thanks to Hoshi leading the way for all the laughs. There was also a nice spin on things too, as Riku settled for spending some time with Nino on the riverside instead, helping her track her reed boats to see if they make it to the ocean. That dress Nino put on at the end though was something else. With a hint of romance and the one-shotcomedic skits filling up the remaining time, this episode left me wanting to see more. I’m just hoping that next week will live up to the laughs in this one.

Funny you guys mention this, as I only caught wind of it two days ago. Much like the anime blog awards before it which have gone into Internet oblivion, my opinion of it is the same as Omni’s — I don’t pay attention to these things nor particularly care about them one way or the other.

The number of voters pale in comparison to the actual number of readers out there, so other than being something fun for the person who runs it, these online awards/tournaments aren’t a good representation of actual site popularity and readership.

In fact, I was thinking about asking to have RC pulled from that anime blog tournament.

I love this series so far. Absurd the majority of the time, often funny as hell and in the end it’s got some cute moments that really bring it down to Earth. Arakawa’s got all the right ingredients for being purely enjoyable.

Having Gin-chan [Tomokazu Sugita] and Takasugi [Takehito Koyashi] in the confessional with Kamiya Hiroshi was hilarious. Created such a weird [awesome] mental picture of Gintama + SZS/Durarara. Given that you know Sugita, i’d be surprised if you haven’t seen Gintama already, another helping of comedic gold…

Probably the best show of the season. I knew that it was weird, but since it’s the guys from Zetsubou sensei (I absolutely loved the first season), I didn’t hesitate to pick this one up. Of course, it’s not a show for everyone, but boy, I think this show’s absolutely magnificent! The cast’s perfect, the humour’s great and the chemistry between Ric and Nino is… special (in a odd but interesting way).

As for this episode, I thought Sugita Tomokazu really nailed it. His sarcastic remarks and humouros timing is always a joy to see.

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